


What Destroys Us

by CaptainTsukiko



Series: Crushed Pages Of A Love Letter [3]
Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: Edo Era, M/M, Power Imbalance, Prostitution, yoshiwara - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 09:03:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6148478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainTsukiko/pseuds/CaptainTsukiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What strange lovers we are—were—coming together with the red strings of fate; only to break apart from damage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Destroys Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Grinner_H](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grinner_H/gifts), [Ashida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashida/gifts), [fanfic3112](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfic3112/gifts).



**Summary** : How easily affection can be hunted down. And how smoothly can lovers be worst enemies.

[But it is the maddening aphrodisiac for Gods that we are.]

 **Rating** : T  
Special Notes: "Ah... This is why I like you. Everyone else is all happy and positive while you're full of negativity." Last Edited On - 9/05/16.

.

What a dreadful fate.

Takaba bunched his Hakama. The coarse fabric was a like a meek lover beneath his nails.

This identity--He looked up at the passing scenery, changing from traditional to western lands of aristocrats--would be changed. Now.

That's what adoption is. Isn't it?

He let a singular bitter smile escape.

A smile full of warm feathered deceits and damnation.

.

Kuroda Shinji was a hard one to deal with. Not in terms of personality, no, but in ways of something more... social. After business negations, it is customary that one should go with their peers' wishes. In this case; going to Yoshiwara. Thankfully, in spite of Kuroda's 'be chaste; make chaste' policy, Aki had managed to drag him together with Kurosawa-san.

One shouldn't rebel their benefactors after all.

And here they are in the place of endless fake lights and equally fake happiness. Takaba thought he was blinded by the sheer amount of red as he raises the sweet alcohol cup to his lips. Kurosawa unashamedly stroking one of the prostitutes' thigh, and Kuroda steadily approaching away from one.

 _If we **are** gonna fuck; why the ceremony?_ He mused. _A waste of alcohol and time._

More laughing. More giggling. More disgustingly not-so-subtle displays of lust.

A couple of attendants moved to slide open the mosaic door.

"I'm sorry for the delay."

Takaba turned. A mistake.

What he saw was a smoke hazed red fey in flesh.

.

Feilong, that was the male Oiran's name.

(At least Aki believed it was.)

He was... well, in a simple word, beautiful. But that didn't quite fit. The word felt oddly unqualified to be associated to someone such as he. Too simple. 

But who cares about such petty descriptions.

The beauty that he sees is the beauty meant for him. No one needs to have an accurate description of that. And he likes it that way.

(Plus, Fei's hate of the Aizu kept Takaba warm at night. He needs no further.)

.

_Aki cups the back of Feilong's head. His scorching breath fans over him. Feilong's posture is abnormally relaxed, he notes. Like he is meant to be doing this._

_Like he just didn't beat Kurosawa up to have the rights to plunder his chrysanthemum gate for one night._

_Just one night._

.

Feilong's robes are snug against his body. Intricate black and gold as usual, and a wink of that red under-robe along the neckline. His belt stretched tight around a narrow waist (which he will undoubtedly tear apart later.) A flash of luminous skin.

Soft. glowing... rare.

It was what Takaba couldn't see that drove him mad.

.

I want it. No - I _need_ it. I have to have it. Only for me.

.

A few more visits. A few more heartbeat-skips.

A few more shared humid breaths. And a few more episodes of growing attachment...

A recipe for tragedy.

.

One night, he is caressing dragon scale like hair and a soft satisfaction in his heart, when he said: "Just be your own natural self. If you were all right, I should be all right too.”

Feilong never looked so shocked.

That night's kisses felt like blossoms drenched in dewdrop.

.

Hearts pumpmed. Aki's hands sweating in this claustrophobic dragon's room. And wafts of scorching fire fanned his face.

_Lust. Passion. Poison._

Sweat dripped down on his eyes.

He tasted salt on his lips. Blood like iron-salt. It strove to drive his nails into Ivory flesh and staining it dark onyx-like red.

"Feeling jealous?"

Feilong had the galls to smile. His dark rouged lips smiling up at him. A sharp tongue to go with the affectionate glimmer in those gold eyes.

Aki grinned in return. Churning his hips just _that_ way that drove Feilong crazy. It didn't disappoint.

_Power._

"Maybe."

.

_Jealousies are petty,  
Romance is fleeting. _

_I'm a thirsty ocean;  
how can my waves reach you?_

.

"I gave the Okaa-san some... Donation. You have a sick father to look after to right?"

Feilong's eyes are dark. Not quite with love, not quite with appreciation.

"You didn't have to."

And the touch he gives isn't warm.

"I insist. This way, you can get out of here faster."

The word he speaks are acidic.

"Don't do this again." And then, with a swish of dark silky long hair: "I will take myself out when the day comes."

It hurt much more than Takaba thought normal.

.

This way he'll never get out; Aki thinks one sunny day. He won't let himself be taken out either. It's difficult. It's frustrating. And it hurts. Feilong's lodged a knife of suffering and sword of ice into his heart.

He can't stand it. Thinking that _right now_ Fei must be sharing a bed with someone else. Someone that is not him.

The still nights, all those fireworks unshared by a lover. Takaba shakes the thought of terminating their little black affair.

It is normal to hurt in relations. (If this could even be called a relationship.) Look at your foster mother and father.

Every love bears a sprinkle of potent hatred.

So he thinks of finding Feilong's father and helping him.

.

Turns out that the help is not welcome.

Perhaps Feilong remembers the one thing Takaba taught him and is putting it to good use. ("If you really hate someone; just ignore 'em." A goofy grin as a sweet side dish.)

Takaba doesn't visit Yoshiwara out of pride. What impudent idiot he would'vr been if he did so.

He thinks that Feilong would send a letter.

 _Maybe, maybe today is the day._  
_Oh okay, maybe the next day._  
_...Probably next week._

Before he knows it, a year is over. (And the worst part is that he shouldn't even complain. It's his own fault.)

Takaba acts like someone close to him has just died.

 .

Lying on the tatami mat, Takaba wonders if he's the only one who is so... emotional. _Does Feilong feel this hurt?_ A bitter, rough laugh. Because that's only he's capable of nowadays. _Does he feel anything at all._

Their relationship was a like a fever. Either he stayed in that fever or... took medication. He did neither. Instead, He beat himself up.

Drank himself close to an early funeral.

(And victimised to a great discontent like a tidal wave.)

.

A narrow space of void in sloshy mass of brain, a space called loneliness.

In these years where I've not heard of you, I've been living so like a Sun without Earth. In a strange, whitish world that demands nights of cruelty. I... I hate you.

This, this miserable; disgusting state - _hurts._ So, so fucking bad _._ Let me disappear into snow. Please.

For vitriol's sake if not affection.

.

.

.

Does loving mean you are loved in return? Does it mean that you two are one; that you can truly understand the other? "Don't be depressed that it's over; Be happy that it happened"? I laugh at your jokery. _I won't be fooled._ I am a spurned lover. I will swallow you whole.To love is—

to die. The thirst that cannot be quenched. Self destructive and willingly entered.

"The madness of the Gods."

_If._

If said Gods existed, that is.

**Author's Note:**

> That, concludes the end of this little "love letter" series. I was actually trying to drag this out, so I don't run out of things to write but... Fresh things taste better, yes?
> 
> This time, I decided to gift this with a ceremonious attitude (as always) to two people whom I greatly admire and idolise, and one my heart is always warm for. Hiro, I had a great time writing to you, and I wish this was as good an experience for you as it was for me. I really never thought you'd reply to the first one, much less read every single story of mine; I'm truly thrilled have talked to someone I consider my idol. 
> 
> And Ashida.
> 
> [I can't write properly with this splinter of embarrassment in my mind, please excuse me.] 
> 
> Even though I'm ashamed to be one of the hundreds of repetitive admirers; I want to dedicate something to you, for simply being with greatly unreachable of skills. So I bare my soul to you. (Even with this repetitive plot; which I think people are getting tired of already.)
> 
> And thanks a bunch to fanfic3112 for always cheering me on :D
> 
> Great job on you two's works, by the way ;D I love every single one of them.


End file.
